George A. Ranney, Jr.
George Ranney volunteers fifty percent of his time as President and CEO of Chicago Metropolis 2020, a business-based organization formed by The Commercial Club of Chicago to improve the region's economic competitiveness. It is implementing long-term policies for regional growth, emphasizing transportation, housing, early childhood education, and criminal justice. Mr. Ranney has been a member of The Commercial Club since 1985.
Mr. Ranney is Senior Counsel at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, a global law firm headquartered in Chicago with which he first became associated in 1967. He is also Chairman and CEO of Prairie Holdings Corporation, which is building Prairie Crossing, a nationally known real estate development designed on conservation principles in suburban Grayslake, Illinois.
Mr. Ranney graduated magna cum laude in History and Literature from Harvard College in 1962, after which Harvard awarded him a Shaw Travelling Fellowship. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review.
* Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
* 2004 Recipient, Order of Lincoln, awarded by the State of Illinois as its highest honor
* Former Deputy Budget Director, State of Illinois under Governor Richard Ogilvie
* Member, Visiting Committee, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, the University of Chicago
* Trustee, the University of Chicago
* Board Member, Field Foundation of Illinois
* Board Member, Metropolitan Planning Council
* Chicago Educational Television
* The Conservation Fund
* Former Member, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
* Trustee for the Committee on Economic Development in Washington, D.C.
* Member, Chicago Committee, Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
Mr. Ranney grew up in Libertyville Township, where he now lives with his wife Vicky. They have three children.
